


Of Healths Five Fathom Deep

by DameOfNoDelicacy



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Dancing, Death, Drinking, Gen, Lots and lots of wine, Personification, Personification of Death, Queen Mab - Freeform, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameOfNoDelicacy/pseuds/DameOfNoDelicacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercutio's experience at the Capulet ball, as he reflects on Queen Mab and tries his best to avoid reflecting on death. But death comes for all all of us in time, as Mercutio learns. </p><p>And sometimes, whether we know it or not, we flirt with death, too. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Healths Five Fathom Deep

Sometimes, Mercutio scared himself.

He’d thought the wine would help; it hadn’t. If anything, it had made the whole thing worse. He’d thought that his senses would dull, that his head would buzz pleasantly, that he would laugh freely and easily and often. But as he stood against one of the high, stone walls of the Capulets’ largest ballroom, hiding behind his mask and reveling in the fact that he’d managed to secret himself in a shadowy corner of the hall, Mercutio felt… felt… he sipped again at his wine, his fourth or fifth cup of the evening. He felt… _wrong_. Something felt _wrong_.

Mercutio watched the candles flickering overhead in their ornate chandeliers, and he shivered. He tried to swallow his mouthful of wine, but a tricky drop or two made its way into his windpipe, and Mercutio coughed, quietly as he could manage. He blinked. He looked around. No one seemed to have noticed. _Good_. He drew a long, deep breath. It was meant to calm him, was meant to steady his trembling hands, but when he exhaled, the air escaped him in a ragged series of hollow, stilted shudders. _My God_ , he thought, _what was this?_ Why did he feel so wrong?

It had started in the square. It had started in the square, after he and Romeo and Benvolio and nearly a score of noblemen, Montague and Escalus and other houses alike, had taken fiercely to the streets of Verona, with their torches and their tabours and their excitement about the masquerade. The air was warm, but the oppressive heat of the day had long since dissipated, and Mercutio had found himself comfortable – had found himself happy, had found himself elated, even – swishing about in his cloak, and hearing the slap of his own boots on the cobbled streets as he ran, and engaging with his comrades in bawdy exchange after bawdy exchange. He’d felt alive, so _alive_ , and Mercutio had been smiling. A ghost of that smile danced across his wine-stained lips now. He certainly knew how to work a crowd, he had to give himself that.

And work the crowd he had. Mercutio was quick-witted, and he knew it. Naturally, he’d long ago cast himself in the role of the jester, of the facile fool, much to the ostensible delight of his friends – and, he had to admit, to himself, too. Mercutio liked being commended for his cleverness, loved hearing his companions roar with laughter at a particularly adept or crude bit of wordplay. _How simple they could be,_  Mercutio observed vaguely, his faint smile turning into a subtle smirk. All he had to do was make a mediocre penis joke, and most of his friends would be in stitches in seconds.

He’d entertained them with such nonsense tonight, first bantering with Romeo about his so-called love, and then going on and on and on – he hadn’t really known until tonight he could talk so poetically for quite so long, actually – about the made-up faerie queen of dreams. _Nonsense,_ reflected Mercutio bitterly, _yes. Nonsense_. But - something had happened to him about halfway through his speech, something he couldn’t explain, and something which chilled him to the very bone.  _I got lost. I... got lost in the speech, somehow..._

He’d burst into the square in the centre of town, that same, familiar old square where he’d spent many a leisurely day killing time and joking with his mates, and Mercutio had screamed to the sky like a madman.

 _What did you say, ’Cutio?_ He struggled to remember. Something about… _about soldiers?_ Yes. Soldiers. That was where it had begun to go awry. Something about soldiers and blades and the slashing of throats, about… about drums? Perhaps. He couldn’t have said. The words had flown out of him, and he’d known that it was his body, that it was his lungs and his tongue, giving them voice, but any semblance of free will had completely disappeared. _Perhaps this is possession,_ he remembered thinking. _Possession by the faerie queen! Ha-ha!_ And he’d kept right on screaming, unable to stop himself, unable to make voluntary movement, unable to do anything, anything at all, except scream, scream, scream –

But then Romeo had stopped him. He’d felt Romeo’s strong hands on his shoulders, shaking him, heard Romeo crying “peace,” and it was only then that Mercutio had returned to himself. Possibly, Romeo had even saved Mercutio’s life – Mercutio had no idea. Oh, Romeo. Handsome Romeo. Silly Romeo, too, though, thought Mercutio. Romeo fancied himself a romantic, a gentleman of both exquisite passion and fine tastes. Which, in Mercutio’s opinion, was more than a bit ridiculous, given that Romeo’s affections were –

_\- more inconstant than the wind, who –_

No. No. Not again. Mercutio felt cold fingertips brush against his hand, his right hand, and he shivered once more, harder this time. He whipped his head around, but saw no one. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him. _Just as well,_ he thought, and, after a moment’s brief consideration, he tipped his head back and drained his wine in one long swig. He stared at the dregs in the bottom of his cup. After another moment’s brief consideration, he pushed himself away from the wall and began to take step after careful step forward – _Left. Right. Left. Right. Well done, ’Cutio, ha-ha-ha, you seem to be walking in a tolerably straight line, don’t you?_ – more or less hell-bent on procuring another cup of wine from across the room.

He was fairly impressed with himself as he slipped easily among the other partygoers – _You always were light on your feet, though, weren’t you? Ha-ha-ha, yes, yes, yes_ – and he kept his face fixed in a benign, cheery expression as he strolled. Something about tonight still felt decidedly wrong, that was certain, but right now, he could ignore that. He had a goal in mind. _Make it to the other side of the room. Get your wine. Make it back to that shadowy little corner. Yes? Yes. And then you won’t have to think about –_

The fingertips again. They touched his upper arm this time, and he felt their chill distinctly through the silk of his shirt. He staggered. His shoulder slammed into a middle-aged Capulet gentleman, who glared at Mercutio from behind his black and gold mask, and Mercutio managed a hasty “Sorry, sir,” and then stumbled to the periphery of the room before he could do any more damage. _Not as light on your feet as you thought, eh, ’Cutio?_ “Oh, do shut up,” he told himself. Mercutio always had words rattling about in his head. Sometimes – _more often these days, isn’t it?_ – he really, really wished he didn’t. Mercutio had never known quiet, had never known peace. Part of him suspected he never would. _Not in this life anyway._

“I thought I told you to _shut up_ ,” Mercutio snarled under his breath, and then he resigned himself to the two-pronged task of using the wall to support himself and finally, finally reaching the wine. _It seems so far away._ It was such a petty, little thing, it was, of _course_ it was, but suddenly, Mercutio felt so hopeless. _What are you doing, ’Cutio?_ He shook his head in the hazy candlelight. “I’m running away, you idiot,” he said as the beginnings of tears pricked his eyes. “Right now, I’m at a party, and I’m meant to be having fun, and I'm _not_ having fun, and so I’m running away, and I’m going to get another glass of wine.”

“Excuse me?”

Mercutio started. The voice was soft, sweet, kind. Slowly, he turned round to face it. Behind him stood a small, young girl – she couldn’t have been more than sixteen, surely – clad all in shining silver and grey and white. Her face was half-hidden by an intricately decorated silver and white mask, but Mercutio found himself at a loss for words – _for once, ha-ha-ha_ – because she was so starkly beautiful. Her pale grey eyes flickered up and down his figure as he stammered “I – I – I…” and then fell silent. He had nothing to say. Nothing.

“I’ve been looking for you,” the girl said. “I’m so glad I’ve found you at last.” And she took his hand in hers.

 _Cold_. The thought shot through Mercutio’s brain the second he felt her small hand touch his. _Cold_. It crackled through him, both utterly unbidden and undeniably overwhelming. _Cold_. The cold surged up his right arm – _That’s my sword arm, damn it, I’m probably going to need that later_ – and, inexplicably, he felt a stab of cold in his chest, too, as if someone had chiseled a knife out of ice and jabbed it straight into one of his lungs. He gasped. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe at all. The cold in his chest began to spread, like blood from a wound. The world began to go dark, and Mercutio was terrified.

And then it was gone. The girl pulled her hand back, and clapped it in front of her mouth, seeming – what? Embarrassed? Ashamed? Mercutio didn’t know. All he knew was that he could breathe again, and that the ghastly cold had stopped.

“I’m sorry,” said the girl.

“Wh… whatever for?” Mercutio whispered. The cold had passed, and now all he could think about was how beautiful the girl was.

“I fear I was being too forward,” she said.

“No,” said Mercutio, “no.” And this time, he reached out to take her hand. When he touched her smooth skin, he felt the cold again, but in truth, it wasn’t half so horrible as it had been last time. _Or perhaps you’re just getting used to it, ’Cutio._ He forced himself to breathe regularly, to ignore the spasms of cold running up and down his right arm and pulsing in his chest with every heartbeat. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” he said. “Who are you?” And then, before he could stop himself – “You – you’re very beautiful.”

She smiled, and she laughed gently, like small bells tinkling. “Thank you, Mercutio,” she said. “I don’t suppose you would have seen me before. It’s like you said – you make something of a habit of running away, don’t you?”

“I want to kiss you,” Mercutio heard himself say. None of what the girl had said had seemed strange to him. She was beautiful, and Mercutio wanted to kiss her, to taste her small, curved, partially open lips. _She must be a rare girl, ’Cutio. You never feel this way about girls._ “I _know_ ,” he growled at himself, “I _know_. Not _now_. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Oh, Mercutio, I know you do,” she said. Why did she sound sad when she said that? Mercutio felt his brow furrow. “Not yet. Not yet. Soon, I think, but not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet?” he breathed, taken aback by her response. It seemed to him that they were meant to kiss, that they had always been meant to kiss, that their destinies had aligned so that their lips might meet on this night, here, in the hall of the Capulets, surrounded by drums and dancers and masks.

“You aren’t ready, ’Cutio. Not yet.” But despite this, she moved closer to him, withdrew her hand from his, and placed it upon his cheek. Then, she took his head in both of her hands, running her slender fingers through his messy, ginger hair. A sigh escaped him, and he felt a jolt from the knife of cold in his chest. Never before had he experienced such a combination of pain and longing. He wanted so much for the cold to stop, but he also wanted the girl to keep touching him, to keep one hand on his head, to keep tracing his jawline with the forefinger of her other hand, to keep running that same forefinger down his throat and across his breast before it stopped just over his heart. She spread out her hand there, and she pushed lightly against him, and Mercutio could feel cold radiating from her palm and from each of her individual fingertips. He closed his eyes and he leaned his head back against the wall, unable to support it on his own any longer. His breathing grew shallow; he was fairly certain that his left lung had ceased altogether to function, thanks to that cold, cold knife. He knew that his heartbeat was slowing. He felt faint. Somehow, he didn’t mind.

Mercutio had no idea how long they stood like that, the girl’s hand resting over his slow-beating heart and her body pressed entirely up against his. He should have been scared, something told him, and yet he felt completely at ease. And still, still, he wanted to kiss her. “My darling,” he murmured, observing without surprise or fear that his voice had grown very, very weak, “do… do you think…” But then the strength to speak left him. Not sure what else to do, he opened his eyes.

“Mercutio?” The word echoed in Mercutio’s skull, and he struggled for a moment to place it. _What was – what had – what?_ And then he saw Benvolio lurching towards him, smiling, but with a hint of concern marking his features. “You all right, ’Cutio? I’ve been looking for you for ages!”

“Fine, fine,” said Mercutio, feeling dazed, but not quite sure why. He put a hand to his chest and let it travel slowly down his left side, where he could have sworn he’d felt the smallest inkling of pain not long ago. “Huh,” he said aloud. Then, “Where’s Romeo got to?”

“Dunno,” said Benvolio. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Well, that won’t do, now, will it?” declared Mercutio, slinging an arm around his friend’s shoulder and beginning to march in the general direction of the dance floor. His head swam for a moment and he leaned more of his weight on Benvolio than he’d intended to. The two of them staggered together under each other’s arms, and it set Benvolio to laughing. Mercutio joined him. This felt better, Mercutio reflected. This felt right.

“’Cutio, look! He’s dancing with a girl!” Benvolio grinned excitedly. “You’ve got a new rival for his affections, eh, ’Cutio?” Benvolio said, shooting Mercutio a knowing glance and waggling his eyebrows.

“Ah, what else is new?” said Mercutio, gazing fondly at Romeo as he danced, his lithe and shapely body moving with ease as he clasped hands with a pretty girl – _a Capulet girl, if he wasn’t mistaken, that was mildly interesting._ “I swear, that gorgeous boy will be the death of me.” And Mercutio laughed again. “Come on, Ben,” he said, “let’s you and me get another drink. Maybe we can find a girl for you too, eh?” Benvolio chuckled, and allowed Mercutio to lead him towards the wine.

As they strolled arm-in-arm across the hall, Mercutio turned back to look at the place where he’d been standing. Yet another faint shiver ran through him, and for a moment, that flicker of fear returned. _Tonight. The faerie queen. The square. The Capulets. Talk of blades. Your sword arm. The stabbing pain in your chest. And that cold…_ something, _something_ , still felt wrong.

 _Death_.

The word leapt without explanation into his mind, almost as if a lover had whispered it in his ear in a voice that was soft, sweet, kind. _Death?_ No. No, Mercutio would not think of death. Not here, not now. _Not ever, not if he could help it._ No, the only way to greet death was with a smile. With a joke. Mercutio had made that resolution long ago. _Because if you don’t smile, you’ll get scared, ’Cutio._ And Mercutio would not, _could_ not, be scared. He hated being scared. He refused to be scared. No. No. _No_.

Still, that cold…

_No, ’Cutio. No._

And so, Mercutio turned away from death. Mercutio turned back to Benvolio, back to his good, loyal, loving friend Benvolio, and back to his quest for wine.

And Mercutio smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this work comes from two places. 
> 
> First, from Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech itself - both the content and the poetic structure are fascinating to me, and both, I think, lend themselves quite easily to an interpretation in which Mercutio loses control of the speech. I took that loss of control a step farther, and made Mercutio think about it just a bit.
> 
> Second, from the musical adaptation of the work by Shakespeare, originally in French and called "Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour.," The musical was subsequently translated into several other languages and performed in several different countries. Some versions include a personification of Death who dances with the characters who are destined to die before the play ends, and I thought that the personification and the dancing were too gorgeous not to write about.
> 
> Also, for those who are wondering: Yup, in this story, Mercutio is a ginger because Zoli is a ginger. Even though there's no personification of Death in the Hungarian version. Don't care. Couldn't help it. Heh.


End file.
